.o Cotton Candy Clouds o.

Clara

Everything was soft and white as if the room was made of cotton and clouds. Only a small section wasn't fuzzy. In the reflection, hands twitched as they ran over the smooth, flat surface of a mirror. The person who looked back had tangled black hair. No one had given her a brush, scared to hand her anything without someone to watch present. The girl in the mirror didn't seem to mind. The short, dark, knots stuck to her hollow cheeks, hiding her freckles; and her tangled bangs were overgrown, nearly covering her crystal blue eyes. Eyes which were still wide, still fragile, but no longer broken. The water the spies had given her was healing her peeling, rounded, chapped lips, and their food was adding color and fullness to her skin again.

Long ago, arms had led her down paths. Voices had floated around her, meaningless and dull. The girl hadn't run. She hadn't tried to hide. When they'd led her through familiar halls with familiar symbols, she didn't fight. Hands had felt her arms, her legs, her waist. Others had felt her head, handed her water she hadn't drunk.

Hands had pulled her arms, legs, felt her head. Clothes had been given to her, soft and clean. Familiar faces she couldn't name had come and gone. One face had stopped to look at her. He'd stared and stared and stared, his eyes shifting from sad, to confused, to something the girl hadn't had a name for. Then he'd left, and the girl was shown a room. She'd never seen a key, but she'd been able to hear it, the small click as the door closed.

Then the girl had been left here. She wasn't sure for how long, only that more faces came and went and gave her food and watched her eat. Sometimes they tried to talk to her, but she never responded. She knew that the cameras were in each corner of the room, and she knew that on the other side of her reflection, someone was watching her. Someone was making sure it was dark when she slept, that it was bright when she was awake. Someone was giving her water, and recently, someone had left a book on the plush table for her, the one with the boy and the fairy who were always running away from the pirate.

The girl knew that, for the first time, she didn't have to run.

Eyes were watching; the cameras prickled at her back and face. They thought she was gone or under or whatever word they wanted to use. They didn't know she could hear the music they played, the words they said to her. No one checked if she was lucid or not. But it was okay.

The girl in the mirror was healing; the girl inside her head no longer scared to come out.

...

Zach

"How's she doing?"

I didn't turn as he sat next to me, my eyes glued to the glass window, the girl on the other side staring right at me. It was one-way glass. She couldn't see anything but her own reflection I knew, but the intensity with which she stared made me doubt.

"She looks more alert." Jonas nodded his head towards my cousin behind the glass as if he hadn't been coming to see her almost as much as I had.

"That's because she is," I told him, sitting up from my position and shaking out my hand. Behind the glass, Clara began tilting her head from side to side. "Fibbs and Buckingham say she's healing rapidly. Physically at least."

Jonas nodded, his eyes following every little movement she made. I never found out what made him and my cousin so close, but at times I believed he knew her better than I did. He'd taken her under his wing, treated her like a sister from the beginning, and there wasn't a doubt in my mind he was one of the main reasons she was still alive. Why she didn't try to run or jump as often as she could have.

"Is she still singing?" He asked after a minute of silence.

"Not as much."

As if hearing him, Clara's voice trilled through the speaker.

"London bridge is falling down, falling down falling down-"

Jonas pressed his lips together. "She's still not responding though? Not talking at all?"

I shook my head.

"London bridge is falling down, my fair lady..." A small frown formed on my cousin's lips, her hands pressing against the glass. Again I had to remind myself that we'd checked the soundproofing of her room, we'd made sure the speaker was one way. Whatever she did, it wasn't because she could hear or see us.

Jonas shook his head slightly, finally looking away from the window to me. "What about you, man? How are you holding up?"

My head fell into my hands. A hard breath, not quite a snort, escaped my nose. "How am I holding up? Dude, Alyson's disappeared again, Evelyn's trail went cold twenty miles from Roseville, Townsend's still pissed I didn't tell him, and nothing seems to be getting through to Clara."

"Take a key and lock her up, lock her up, lock her up..."

Jonas sighed. "What about Cam? I thought she was talking to you again."

A dark chuckle bubbled from my chest. "Yeah," I said, "But have you seen the others? Cammie may be ready to talk to me, but I have a feeling it's going to take more to get back in Bex and Macey's good graces."

"Aw, come on, man. At least Liz is cool with us."

"She's cool with the facts. I'm not sure about us." I turned to him slightly. "Are you sure Liz is fine? She seems kinda tense whenever she comes down here." My mind wandered to the fidgety way she would sit her eyes darting from her paper to Jonas every few seconds, or how short her visits down here were after the first night.

Jonas shrugged, his eyes flickering back to Clara. "We're all tense."

"Have you explained why you refuse to leave Clara? Why you care so much?"

He shook his head. "Haven't had time." I sighed. He seemed to be forgetting that the girls didn't know our old system. Our habits were still foreign to them, no matter how ingrained they were in us.

"Take a key and lock her up, my fair lady..."

Jonas sighed. "Look, girls are something I can't decode, but right now my concern is making sure Clara's fine and finding Alyson and Eva. And yours should be too." He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Everything else will work itself out in time. And as for your dad, I think you need to explain things to him as soon as possible." He stood up with a grin. "You know, before Alyson shows up with a gun pointed at his head."

I groaned. Alyson. When I'd found out about Townsend I'd taken it badly. I couldn't imagine what was going through Ally's mind right now. Worse case scenario, Townsend wouldn't be able to leave the school until we had her secure. Even then, it would be difficult explaining anything to her. Assuming we'd find her at all.

I looked at Jonas. "How are we going to do this?"

He raised an eyebrow. "How do we do anything? Dive headfirst, and try not to think about what the hell we're doing."

The reason why that was the exact opposite of what I'd wanted to hear was on the tip of my tongue; however, I never got to tell him.

"Zach?" a voice called, "I'm ready to come out now."

...